The Arizona Coyotes made headlines yesterday as it was reported that the NHL and NHL Players’ Association are investigating a gap in protocol which resulted in Juuso Välimäki lingering in a Dallas hospital for hours without care last month after taking a slap shot to the mouth which required facial surgery. Coyotes’ general manager Bill Armstrong talked about the immediate aftermath of Välimäki’s injury and dove into detail about how the situation was ultimately handled. “First of all, it's one of the scariest things I've seen,” Armstrong said via PHNX Sports. [https://twitter.com/PHNX_Coyotes/status/1735803288367608249] “It was a 95 mile an hour slap shot straight to his upper teeth. It just so happened I kind of knew his wife was at the game and the first thing I thought was about her, and I mean to witness that firsthand. The player that was Hakanpää who shot it and he was disheveled too. It just was a straight slap shot to the mouth, moving at 95 miles an hour. “If you know Juuso Välimäki, he is somebody on our team that probably cares the most, the way he trains, the way he operates around the team. And so, it's just what can we do for him at that moment, is he gonna be ok, what's gonna be the next step.” This was a gruesome injury suffered by Välimäki and Armstrong was made clear of that by the trainers who were involved with the situation. “I remember texting the trainer right away even though the game was going on. ‘Where is he? How bad is it?’ They said, ‘Hey, it's bad. He's left the ice in an ambulance. We've got one of our sports science guys moving with him right now and his wife's getting to the hospital,”’ Armstrong said. [https://twitter.com/PHNX_Coyotes/status/1735803288367608249] The report from Frank Seravalli stated that Välimäki received 55 stitches and despite needing immediate surgery, he was told by an ‘overworked’ Dallas hospital to find a local hotel and return in the morning due to more critical incoming trauma patients including gunshot victims. He reportedly had the surgery at 2 o’clock in the afternoon the following day after the game, 12 hours after receiving stitches. Armstrong talked about how the Coyotes organization handled Välimäki’s situation and the communication he and the team had with him. “From our standpoint, he got into the emergency room, so we had a liaison basically who stayed with him along with his wife and made sure that we got what was the update and what was going on and from our standpoint, we tried to do everything we could. We flew his wife home, obviously after the surgery with him, along with a liaison to take care of them and who was in constant contact with our trainers and our doctors back in Arizona, but we don't travel with a dentist and we don't travel with a doctor that's provided by the other club,” Armstrong said. [https://twitter.com/PHNX_Coyotes/status/1735803288367608249] Juuso Välimäki spoke prior to the Coyotes matchup against the Blues. “So for us, we had to allocate our trainers to move back and look after the other 22 players going the other way, but we wanted to make sure that we took care of them under the protocol and make sure that we did above and beyond, and we actually had David Ludwig from hockey ops also in town, making sure that everything was handled properly.” Only time will tell to see what happens regarding the NHL’s investigation, but it’s good to see Armstrong speak on the matter from his and the Coyotes’ point of view.
